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Jack Fowler
Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Victor Davis Hansen Show. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. Victor is the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Busky distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. And he is a farmer, philologist, a classicist, a military historian. I think he's America's.
Victor Davis Hanson
I did a lot of things and all not too.
Jack Fowler
That's. That's absolutely not.
Victor Davis Hanson
It was not a good Farming was the hardest of all.
Jack Fowler
Yes.
Victor Davis Hanson
And I was not a successful, financially successful farmer.
Jack Fowler
Well, could you have been a financially successful farmer with this amount of acreage and growing raisins?
Victor Davis Hanson
What is it really like? I was too wedded to. I'd been brought up to Save the ranch. Keep your great grandparents. Grandparents. Traditions don't change.
Jack Fowler
Right.
Victor Davis Hanson
So the place was. Wasn't viable. But I have 45 acres.
Jack Fowler
Do you remember in the. In the. Was it this the 88 election where. Where. What did Michael Dukakis suggest to people that was a grow Belgian endive. Do you remember that?
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I do. I do. I used to get a lot of. I know that he was a man of the left but he used to write me really long handwritten letters. Wendell Berry, you know the. I really liked him. I did. He was a very sweet guy and he wrote me. Oh, I don't. After Fields Without Dreams and the Land Was Everything. Two books I wrote on farming. He wrote me some of the nicest letters. And I really well, I'm at your.
Jack Fowler
Farm right now, folks. I know people see the background, they think, where's the lovely Sammy Wink while we got this fat ugly guy here. But that's you just I'm here, I'm on the farm. I'm out in California. And it's a great honor to be doing this and doing this with Victor. And we just recorded another show and this shows we're recording on the 22nd, Sunday the 22nd. This episode will be up on Thursday the 24th. And while we were recording the previous show, some news broke about, of course, about Iran and Trump. And we're going to get Victor's take on this breaking news. Plus some trans a father of a trans a kid wrote us. I, I think it's worth getting Victor's take on that and some other subjects. And we'll do all that when we come back from these important messages. What is dadication?
Unknown Parent
The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona. We call him Dae Date for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job.
Jack Fowler
That's dadication. Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council Foreign we are back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. I don't think I mentioned Victor's got a website, the Blade of Perseus. Victor Hansen.com Go there. Subscribe 65 a year, discounted from 650amonth. Victor's writes two original pieces exclusive every week for the Blade of Perseus and one exclusive video. So go do that, Victor. Here's the headline from the Daily Mail. While we were recording our previous episode, I ran Iran threatened Trump with sleeper cell revenge terrorist attacks inside US days before the nuclear strikes. And here's the first paragraph or two. Iran warned Donald Trump it would unleash sleeper cell terrorists to wreck wreak havoc on US Soil if he attacked. According to reports, Trump received a communique from the regime just days before he ordered US Military strikes on its nuclear facilities. Sources told NBC News the official message was delivered to Trump through an intermediary G7 summit in Canada last week. The president left early on June 16th to consider his options amid the conflict between Israel and Iran, according to sources.
Victor Davis Hanson
You know, it's very funny that news. I had not heard that, but I was kind of struck. I think it was Saturday afternoon. I was writing an article, watching TV and Trump was on the tarmac and some reporters were kind of being slightly obnoxious but pressing him. And he finally just turned to him and said, you're a target right now. You're in danger because you're near me. I'm a target. And I thought that was kind of, that was a strange thing to say. But obviously he'd been briefed. If I were around, I would not do that because people have lost all patience with you guys after 47 years. And one of the weird things about Iran is not just its total loss of all of its influence. So if Jack and I had this conversation on October 8th of 2023, right after this pre civilizational, medieval, many holocaust of innocent Jews. And I had said to Jack, I make a prediction, within two years they're going to destroy Hezbollah and they're going to. The leadership is going to be identifiably maimed for the rest of their life. There's going to be no air defenses in Iran. Israeli planes and American planes are going to be flying at will anywhere they want to go. The Assad 60 year dynasty is going to blow up. The Russians are going to be out of the Middle East. Hamas is going to be stuck in tunnels, but not really much less of it. It's all of its kingpins like Mr. Nasrallah of the Hezbollah are going to be dead. The Houthis are going to try to cut a deal with us. You would have said, God, Victor, you're nuts. That can't happen. But that's exactly what happened. And yes, it was due to Israeli courage and brilliance and Donald Trump's leadership. But there was also one other element, and I don't think. I'm not talking, I want to be very careful and specific. I'm not talking about the Iranian people, but is the most widely despised government in the world. And I don't mean just by the United States. I'm talking about liberal Europe hates it, its patrons China, remember the Uyghurs and Russia, remember what they did to Grozny when they leveled that Islamic city. They don't like radical Islam or Islam in general, but they despise Iran. They do not want the Iranians to get a bomb. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, all they had to do since they were kill killers is coordinate. After October 7th, I was expecting an apocalyptic October 8th I thought, wow, you're going to get all of these rockets from Hezbollah, you're going to get a Hamas to come out of the tunnels, you're going to get the Houthis to blanket Israel with the missiles and drones, then you're going to get Assad doing something, and then you're going to get all of these Iranians. But you know what happened? Iran didn't do anything. They kind of winked and nod. Well, we were kind of not kind of maybe. Sort of maybe involved, but they just let each of these terrorist tentacles be out on their own. They just let them, you know, they just said, you know what? You go do it. And they, we put you up to it, you go do it. And they don't. Right now, they're not really reacting to Iran's plight. I don't see a lot of people volunteering, do you, from Lebanon or Syria or, I don't know, the west bank or Gaza or Yemen go and fight for Iran. I don't I think people so what I'm getting at is even the people who deal with that government don't like them. So when this war started and there was even the Arab countries don't like them. And so when they're looking around and they're thinking, wow, the Israelis were really successful and the American. But part of that Western success was the world. Even the dark side of the world, the evil side of the world, the autocratic, dictatorial, medieval, don't like them. Something about them, they, they are cry bullies. You know what I mean by that? They're crybaby that all they do is kill and maim and pick on innocent and people that are helpless. And then when somebody just once in a rare time retaliates like we did, then they start crying. This is I was l watching the UN Thing. I was just flabbergasted. The Iranian ambassador.
Jack Fowler
This is so unfair.
Victor Davis Hanson
This was against international law. I thought, what did after 50 years, this is late. This is not nearly what you deserve. So that's a missing tessera and this larger mosaic that they have no goodwill across the globe. Everybody doesn't like that. I think Putin, he reportedly talked to Trump. I, I would give you 50, 50 odds that Putin said something like, well, we don't like you, Donald, getting in and getting on your hind legs and, and doing all this stuff. And we could in theory arm Iran army in Ukraine, but you know what? Privately we don't mind the oil going up, but more importantly, we don't like them any more than you do we have to deal with them? They're lying sobs. We don't like them. And they stir up Islamic terrorism everywhere they go. And I'm sure that people, I'm sure the Chinese said the same thing. They said all we want is calm so the price of oil goes down, not up. But we don't like these people any more than you do. They're like our North Koreans. Nobody likes them either.
Jack Fowler
You know, I gotta string another headline on you.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Oh, Mole, I didn't know about that.
Jack Fowler
Well, I know. Well, here's another one that just happened. I should just keep the phone fast.
Victor Davis Hanson
Breaking news here on a Sunday right after the Saturday attacks.
Jack Fowler
Again from the Daily Mail. Trump sensationally calls for Iranian regime change as he holds crisis talks with UK Prime Minister Kent Keir Starmer. On Sunday, the US President took to his Truth Social page to share. Well, we mentioned this in the last podcast, Make Iran Great Again. But Victor, in the, in the, in the init, I watched way too much follow up analysis of the bombings up Midnight Hammer. And what repeated constantly was that this is not about regime change. This is not about regime change. And now here Donald Trump is holding.
Victor Davis Hanson
Really good what he's doing because he's squaring an impossible circle because the MAGA doctrine, rightfully so said anytime we go into these countries and we try to change the government and impose our values, we end up with pride flags on the embassy in Kabul or gender studies and then we're weak and we're imperialistically obnoxious and they don't want to change. And you know what? Not one drop of American blood is worth any of the Taliban. So SIA wouldn't want to be. That was the MAGA credo after Iraq and Afghanistan and the, the misadventure in Libya. So regime change hasn't worked and nation building hasn't worked. So Donald Trump knows is a third rail that you don't. You didn't go into Iran to take out the government and plant one of our own. You didn't even want to go in there and take out the government because when they know what Hillary did in Libya, they took out Gaddafi and they got something worse. But, but, but once you've done it in the aftermath of the fact and the fact that you didn't go in there to do it, and then you start hearing again and again that they want to kill you and they want to continue, then you something that you don't really care about what happens afterwards. You just don't want them around because they are the worst of the worst. And you're not going to try to hide that anymore. And you would you have more confidence in the Iranian people that might come up with something, even if it's a general in the military who was semi secular than this bunch. This is the worst of the worst. This is worse than Saddam. This is worse partly because Iran has so many more natural ass than did Iraq or Libya. But you know, if they were to unleash sleeper cells, they have no idea about the American people, there would be a mass uprising. And I think that would be a stupid thing to do if you were the Iranians, because every Iranian national who was pro, and there's a lot of them in the United States that are pro regime. They're, they're here in the academic field and, and everywhere in the media, Robert type of people. And not that he's Iranian, but they, they would be going home immediately. So I, I don't think that would be a wise thing to do. I want to ask you about Diaspora.
Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I've had, I was in academia, as you know, for half a century, still am at the Hoover Institution. So I probably. And then I have a lot of friends in agribusiness and there's a large Iranian community in agriculture in California. There's a lot, I go to Los Angeles a lot. There's a lot of Iranians expatriates. And I have had, let me put it this way, I would say I've had 10 or 12 of the greatest conversations of my life with Iranian expatriates that were so talented and so pro American. And I've had 10 of the worst conversations in my life. And I try to be empirical, not emotional about it. So I always ask a question, what year did you come to the United States? That's the break off for me. And in my unscientific, I'm being unscientific, but it's based on my own empirical observations. Those who saw the writing on the wall, 78, 79 before the Shah fell and they were predominantly Jewish, but not all they got out of Iran before the apocal and they were pro Shaw or pro Western. It was several hundred thousand, several hundred thousand in the first diaspora. And they came and now they're very, very prost. They're very successful, they're pillars of the community and they're hyper patriotic. They are pro American. They despise that regime. Now that said, remember that when they took over the embassy, that wasn't all Islamicist at all. Might have been one of the students, but they were also socialist, Marxist, euro student types and they really did. All they talked about was Mossadegh, Mossadegh, Mossadegh. And I won't get into the intricacies and complexities of the British Petroleum dash CIA effort to dispose them. But Mosaddegh was not Abraham Lincoln as we're told. But that's another story. But my point is this. The second group really did feel that they were in the media, they were in government, they were in the universities and education and they were socialist leftists. And they felt that the Islamicists were so barbaric and so, and these were mostly atheists, agnostics and secularists, not Islamicists. But they thought that no one in their right mind would turn over this sophisticated society that the Shah built to those people, those backward Khomeini ites. But they would. After the revolution was over, these useful idiots, the mullahs would. And then they, the intellectuals and the Socialist and the communists and the secularists would take over. And they didn't understand what the Khomeini people were like. And so they were liquidated. Remember Bonnie Sauter? He was sent to France. Goats body was executed. All of these anti American dandies that thought they could ride the weight of the wave of the Islamicist revolution. So then Khomeini came in, and by 81 and 82, they were just going down the list and getting rid of all what they called infidels. And these were, you know, sincere people who were opposed to the Shah, the autocracy. Naive but sincere. And so they started coming to the United States and Europe. So my breakoff was usually 81, 82. And I would meet these people not in business. They didn't own coffee shop chains, they didn't own cotton farms. They didn't, you know, they weren't entrepreneurial. They were. I saw them again and again in academia. I saw them again and again in the media. I saw them again again in the bureaucracy here. And they all were similar. I had a lot of really vociferous arguments. Their narrative was, you Americans created Khomeini via the Shah and you did this to us and da da, da, da, da. And we, we would have run a nice socialist Iran, but the Khomeini people were created because of your oppression and imperialism. And now we got, we suffered for what you did, and now we're stuck here in the United States. And they were pro Iranian in a weird way. They didn't criticize that regime. They criticized the regime among themselves and in the abstract, but they felt that the United States was demonizing Iran. And in some ways they were as bad as the Khomeiniites. And they're all over now in the United States government and they are the second wave diaspora and they are not fond of the United States in my view. They blame it. And it's, it's going to be every time you talk to them. They cannot criticize Iran. They will not criticize. I don't. I mean, the Iranian government, they won't. Even though that Iranian government killed them off and drove them out. It'll be like we were drove an out because of you, because of Mosaddegh, because of, of, of your imperial and the CIA. If you, if you had have been fair to us, then the Comanites wouldn't have come in. It's your fault, your fault. And then you think, well, if it's our fault, why in the blank did you come here? Why didn't you go to a socialist utopia in Poland or something. But. So I've had a lot of problems with the second wave.
Jack Fowler
Who was Obama? I can't remember her name. I can't remember anyone's name. The woman who was Obama's right hand.
Victor Davis Hanson
Who was Valerie Jarrett?
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, she was representative of. Well, she wasn't really an Iranian, father was, but she was definitely pro Iranian. And although she was very liberal, she was very tolerant and appeased this fundamentalist lunatic government as Obama did. And they did because they felt that that government had legitimate grievances against us and. And was a result of our culpability. And we had lost an opportunity to a good left wing IR secular government because of what we did. So they. In other words, they were more pro Ahmedjad than they were American.
Jack Fowler
On our last episode, we were talking and we're gonna go to a break in a second, but we were talking much more about what happened. Operation Midnight Hammer. I meant to ask you, the General Raisin Cain.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes.
Jack Fowler
Has he ever been involved in anything you've done at Hoover, the military?
Victor Davis Hanson
I think he's visited. I haven't. We had General Abizaid, we've had. General Mattis is a fellow. General McMaster is a senior fellow. Admiral Ellis, who's a charge of the Mediterranean Fleet, is a fellow. We have a program where lieutenant colonels come. We've had some wonderful people participate.
Jack Fowler
Did you know his reputation before?
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, I did as a. He was. He and the former. The two former CENTCOM Vogli or whatever. Vogli. But the main one that when I. The one who was legendary was Korilla. I don't know if you remember somewhere when. The first three years of the war, 2003, there was a journalist named Michael Yan and he. Yeah. And he wrote dispatches. He wrote dispatches directly from. And he has a series of them. When he was embedded with Eric Carilla's. I guess it was battalion or brigade, I guess. And he was in combat with him and watched him. He was wounded three times. Yes, he almost got killed. He was a lieutenant Colone. He was out in firefights. He was the most experienced combat veteran of any general of his generation. And when I was embedded in 2007, I also went for a brief period. I think it was four days in 2006, mostly in helicopters. It was not as long, but everybody talked about him. Everybody talked about him. And my point is that he became a legendary figure. And now he's. I don't know how he did it, but he was rewarded on merit. Usually the Pentagon doesn't reward Meri as it should. And now he's CENTCOM commander and he's very pro Israel and he's very skeptical of Iran. And he's been the liaison between us and Israel in missile defense and operational strategies. And he is one reason why Israel and the United States are on the same page right now. And he took a lot of heat during the Biden administration. A lot of us were afraid they'd relieve him because he was so competent and he was so fair to Israel. And he's a wonderful person. And I hope when the present, I think that all of our better informed listeners will know, I don't know the tenure of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I think it's three or four years. But if, if there is an opening of the present, guy is wonderful, too. But Carilla would be a wonderful chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I think he's headed for retirement this year. He's earned it. He's been everywhere, anywhere there's been combat and danger. That's where he's been. I should also be fair to my colleague, HR mcmast Astro.
Jack Fowler
He was in the lead tank.
Victor Davis Hanson
Oh my gosh, he was, he was in the largest tank battle since. I guess it was larger than the Am Kipper war. Tank battles, at least single battle. He was, he was a captain of an Abrams tank group that destroyed all of the T72s. And then he was, you know, all through the Iraq war, he was on the front lines. He had shrapnel. I think he injured his tip. When I went with him for four or five days, he made me sit in the left rear of the Humvee on because that was the one place when it hit something you had a survival ability. I remember going into these rooms where he was. It was during the Arab Spring and the defection of the Saddamites to the cause of the surge. He would always, everybody had to be unarmed. And so you were with all these former Saddam Baathists. Some of them had these weird Saddam tattoos, you know, on their face. And you never knew they had blown up people before. And so he always said, you sit by because if we get blown up, you're going to go out the door, not up and smoke. So I was, I always, he's a colleague of mine. His office is right next door. So I've always, we disagreed a little bit on Trump, but he was unlike some others I won't mention. I think his problem with Trump wasn't that he was trying to undermine Trump. Maybe he said things that that were anti Trump, but he was trying to translate Trump ease into actual policy. So if Trump said I want to get out of the rand, he probably, I'm just surmising. He probably said, I don't think we should right now, but if you want to do it, here's how we're going to do it. And then he did it. That was different than some people like Rex Tillerson and Bolton who tried to obstruct. And so anyway, Eric Carrillo is a legendary figure and I'm so glad that he's there right now.
Jack Fowler
Well, we're going to get your take on objectivism in reporting and journalism and have a very touching, powerful letter from a parent of a transgender kid. And I think would like to read part of this and get your take on that. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages.
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Jack Fowler
We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show again. We are recording on Sunday the 22nd. This episode is out on Thursday the 26th. And only the Lord knows what will transpire between these two dates. We live in the fastest breaking news cycle of that I can imagine ever lived through. VICTOR Terry Moran of infamy, no longer with ABC News, finally got the heave ho. Was with them for quite a while and he gave a talk. Former ABC News reporter Terry Moran says journalists shouldn't be objective. We know they're not objective, but this.
Victor Davis Hanson
Is a. Terry, I gotta ask you a question. Why is there a prefix called opinion? Opinion journalism, that's what an op ed writer does. The op ed writer surveys the news and then he gives his opinion. And typically they are divided, mostly, they may deny it into conservative columnists like myself and liberal columnists on the other side. But the news division. The news division is support. I mean, we all have personal prejudice, but they have a code of conduct. They learned in journalism school, supposedly. But what you're doing, Terry, is you're just channeling. You're not even original. Because when Trump was elected, we had a triad of marquee journalism. This is coming to me now. So please, if I don't get this right, we had a guy in the New York Times named Jim Rutenberg, remember him? And he wrote an op ed and said, I am not going to be disinterested. That's out the window from now on. We're going to be biased because you have to be to stop Donald Trump. He's an existential threat. Then we had Christiane on import and she wrote and said, I cannot be neutral. You can't be neutral. Not on climate change, not on all these existential efforts. And then we had my favorite, Jorge Ramos, the guy who lives in the gated community in Florida, the elite who trashes the United States all the time on immigration. And he said immigration was so critical and we were so unfair to Latin America. I don't know why he wanted to live here, but he does that. He couldn't be disinterested. So they set the standard that the new journalism was going to be biased with Such arrogance and UBIs, they never thought themselves, hmm, if I do this and describe, destroy the protocols and the ethos of journalism, do you think that there might be other people who disagreed with me and had similar intellects and abilities as I do and evidence that they would then think as journalists they could be biased and try to slant the news to Trump? And then I wouldn't object because I said because I'm biased. They could be biased. They never did that because they thought their genius suppressed everybody else, that everybody would agree with them. And it's really sad to see. I don't want to keep picking on the Wall street, but I think a lot of you out there read the op ed writers, the opinion journalists in the Wall Street Journal, especially Kimberly Strassel. I like. Did you know James Freeman at all? I know James Yeah, I think he writes very good. And Holman Jenkins, I, I disagree with him sometimes, but I like him.
Jack Fowler
Bill McGurn.
Victor Davis Hanson
Bill McGurn. And I, I think Gerald. Gerald Baker is wonderful. I disagree with him, but I like what he wrote. All of them. Jason Riley. But when I look at the news, it's. It's not disinterested anymore. It's always every, every article that has the word Trump in it has some kind of knife that you twist into him. Everyone. And I don't even read the news anymore. I just read the opinion journalists. I still have my subscription, but I can't read it anymore. And then I look at, as I said before in a podcast, I look at the names and they all come from Atlantic, Political, Washington Post, New York Times. So somebody at the Wall Street Journal has decided that unlike the New York Post, this mur stock outlet will be left wing.
Jack Fowler
You know, this Moran thing is no news to us.
Victor Davis Hanson
We.
Jack Fowler
We've known. Remember Journal, the journo list from.
Victor Davis Hanson
I think I was mentioned on it.
Jack Fowler
Oh, you were?
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, that was. Was that Ezra Klein?
Jack Fowler
Yeah, with a ton of people. They all sang off the same song sheet. Yeah, they did. Here's the story today.
Victor Davis Hanson
Remember when they cracked John Podesta's emails and they had all those New York Times reporters said, one of them said, I know that I'm a complete fraud because here what I think I'm going to write. And again, they were sending their news articles to be proofread. Yeah.
Jack Fowler
By the way, Christina, you mentioned her last week. I swore she said something like, she's afraid to come to the United States.
Victor Davis Hanson
Promises, promises. Please don't come. Yeah, she married. Wasn't his name Jamie Rosen? He was on TV the other day. She's. Well, what is it about the left that they all have to be wounded fawns. They all have to be. I'm on the barricade. You know, they're all safe, they're all affluent, they're all protected, they're all entitled. But they all want to get, like, you know, they want to get arrested or they want to crash an ice thing, or they want to say that they're on a hit list or George Clooney will be out of business or Bruce Springsteen or Rosie o' Donnell. They're all. It's all psychodrama.
Jack Fowler
You know, they do that we don't do. We do very little. Let me just. Last time I saw you, a month ago, it was in Washington. There were the Bradley Prizes. Okay, so there are prizes. There are Things. There are awards that happen on the right, but nowhere like on the scale.
Victor Davis Hanson
That it happens on the law at all.
Jack Fowler
I mean it's a staggering. And these folks live to get, to get honors and awards.
Victor Davis Hanson
And tell me about every time I'm on a hiring committee and I look at all these letters after people's names and I hear some people I won't mention, colleagues. Oh my gosh. Harvard, BA, Yale, PhD. He was a Guggenheim winner. He had a National Endowment for the Manus grant. My God, he was at the Rome Center. I think I just want to look at the title of the thesis and the publications. I want to read them to see if they're convincing or empirical. But that you're right, the left is so weird because ostensibly they're left wing people. We're with the people, we're hoi polloi. And yet they're the most intensely obsessed and fixated on honors, titles, grants. And it tells you again the key to the left wing mind. It's a psychological attempt to square the impossible. To be Joe Everyman and just be for equality of result and yet want to be better, better rewarded, elite, exclusive, snobbish. And that it all works out to this stupid guilt. I'm going to live in the nicest area of Palo Alto and I'm going to have a but. And I'm going to have a $5 million home and be very liberal. But I do have a Ukraine flag on my lawn. And I did have a blm. And this we, we had that sign, remember it said there is no racism in this home.
Jack Fowler
I think the poster child for all this may be the scarecrow from the wizard of Oz. Remember at the end got a doctor of Thinkology and then recited the Pythagorean theorem.
Victor Davis Hanson
There was something in that when they, when they started to give all those little elements as if that was equatable with knowledge. That was kind of a critique. The university's on a full, full down. I don't think it's going to recover because it. I think everybody looks at these protests. You're in New York. Did you see that swarming of Pental Station? Yeah. A bunch of protesters went in and just swarmed the whole station where people were trying to get on the train screaming about Palestine, all the whole thing. And you get the impression now that it's not worth subsidizing to 1.7 trillion to send these kids to go to these places that are 95% leftist and get indoctrinated and ruined and childless. Not married, no home until their mid-30s, angry that their education didn't give them the material rewards they think they deserve. But nothing but debt with worthless degrees in sociology and gender studies.
Jack Fowler
Spaghetti arms.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, spaghetti arms. And screaming and yelling, let's just become electrician. Nothing's more noble than to be an electrician.
Jack Fowler
Maybe some of them will stick their finger in the wrong outlet it and get a little.
Victor Davis Hanson
I've met a lot of electricians and I supposedly have a PhD in classical languages. And they'll say, Victor, now this. Let me explain it to you for.
Jack Fowler
The fourth time, my friend the plumber Al Monroe says, jack, plumbing is not a hobby. But Victor, I want to take a moment for our sponsor, Quince. Quince has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard high hangs to nice dinner.
Victor Davis Hanson
Is the best part.
Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hanson
I think what he's trying do to, to get at and I, he does get at it. I'm not suggesting he doesn't, but he's got, he's, he's dealing with an elemental truth and it's one that we've discussed before. Let's say we go back to 2010. It was widely accepted that genuine gender dysphoria, biological malady, it's as I said, it's in the literature among hallmark sexologists is that there are people with cognitive cerebral sex orientation that doesn't match their physical bodies. So they are men trapped in women or women trapped in male bodies. But, but if you look at the numbers per hundred thousand, it's just minuscule. And this is a, it's not just Victor saying this is decades of sophisticated research. It's about.01%, it's very small. And suddenly this became the next civil rights issue of. And all of a sudden the universities started to use, they abolished the word sex. They started gender. Then they said that unlike race apparently that it was malleable that people could construct their own gender. And all of a sudden it became a civil rights left wing cause celeb. And then you started to see these astonishing mass hysterias were in some campuses, it was at Brown where 20%, 20 to 30% of the undergraduates said they had considered transitioning. And then we used to be very skeptical of the medical profession performing dangerous operations on minors. I know in my family, my mother's sister Lila, who lived in this house when I was young, had polio and they did 17 experimental operations at the Shriners Hospital in the 1920s. She went in there walking and she, she came back with her legs broken about 50 different places to try to straighten. And she was a lifelong invalid. But that was always, I always brought up that why would they do that to an eight year old, nine year old? Well, they were trying their best at the time. But my point was the general ethos was let's be careful with operations on children. And more importantly, let's be careful on the prescription of very powerful drugs, hormones, antidepressants, on children and preteens and young teens, all of a sudd. The woke ideology put all of that ancient wisdom out the door, threw it away. And just now it was a civil rights issue. If you opposed a doctor basically mutilating somebody's physiognomy and a face or body or sexual org anything. And we were getting these dangerous operations, and then we went to the next level where the parents weren't even to be told about it. And yet, as I said before, throughout the ages, if you look at medieval literature or you look at Roman literature, you look at Greek literature. I can remember in the historian Diodorus, in an odd passage, he says, there was a person in this part of Greece, and although he had male characteristics, he was a female. And then we have the Hermaphrodite in Greek mythology, Hermes and Aphrodite. In other words, he had both sex organs. And then we had the myth of Tiresias, who wanted to know whether women or men enjoyed sex more. So he changed himself into a woman. And we had Petronius, Satyricon, transvestism, cross dressing, transgenic gender. All of that was documented as gender dysphoria. But there was also a theme to it. And that theme to it was it was enhanced and popularized, calibrated on the affluence of a society. And the more leisured and affluent a society and more urban, the more it was expressed. And so we didn't learn from antiquity or the history of Western civilization. That's tragic that. I'm not saying that the writer's son wasn't really suffering from gender dysphoria, but given the amount of people who have said they were transgender, given when it's collated with the previous scientific evidence of the actual demographic of that group, they're at odds. So I just hope that his son was not a person who was unduly influenced by the popular culture or the institute, college, or high school. And I can tell you that there's a lot of advocacy there. And it's a dangerous. It's a. It's very dangerous. The type of drugs are prescribing and the operations, they're normalizing.
Jack Fowler
Well, we are conscious of the tremendous amount of parental heartbreak there is out there, Victor. So thanks for your comments. We're going to.
Victor Davis Hanson
It's terrible. It's terrible. And there's a lot of ways to lose a child. And. And whether a child wants, you actually lose a child or a child won't speak to you or any of that. It's terrible. And I feel for the writer.
Jack Fowler
Well, we're going to head into the home stretch and we have two things to talk about and I forgot. Oh, yeah, here they are. We've, we've talked in the past about blowing up dams and Donald Trump's doing something about that. And then there's our old friend Tim Walls. And we'll get your thoughts on his latest. Whatever. Yeah. When we come back from these final important messages.
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Jack Fowler
We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. I like to get to the the dam stuff first. Victor, you've talked a lot about what's happening in California. You did on a recent podcast, too. There's a great website I've come across, Unwon un wo. It follows rural land use issues. And a piece here from last week, Trump stops Snake River Dam removal. It says Biden plan elevated fish over citizens. And Victor, there was a plan to blow up four dams on the Snake River. They generated 3,000 megawatts of reliable power.
Victor Davis Hanson
Clean power.
Jack Fowler
Clean. Right. And enough to power 2.5 million homes. And they were going to be blown up because why? I don't know. Because the headline is right. Fish are preferred.
Victor Davis Hanson
They don't understand that. Say, take California. There's 40 million people here. 41 million people. There used to be 2 or 3 million. And that was when rivers ran wild. Our grandparents and great grandparents saw these dams on the major rivers of California to take this instance as supplying four benefits for a sophisticated and growing society. They're recreational. They allow people sports, water sports, sailing, boating, fishing. Second, they can control floods. They can modulate the intensity of the river downfall. Number three, they create, as you said, hydroelectric power. And four, in my interest, they provide irrigation for agriculture by storing the water. And yet who in the world, to take our example, would blow up four dams on the the Klamath river, not nearly as big as these dams, but on the Snake. But Gladden, it wasn't just that he blew them up, but he took money from a California bond measure passed by the majority of us to build dams. And he took that and expropriated and used half a billion dollars to blow them up. And for the first year and a half, and it's still the after effects are with, it was an ungodly disaster. It created mud flows, it killed wildlife, it polluted, it destroyed the homes of people that were at lakeside home that rob people of electricity. And he did that. And one of the things that they do is they, they try to use fish under the guise of Native American people should have their ancestral rights to harvest salmon or something. That's what they did with a Klamath and to a lesser extent with a snake. But it's anti modern, anti civilizational, it's nihilist. And Donald Trump, once again, you know, if you just think about it, and I do think about it, Kamala Harris was president right now. I think that Iran would have a nuclear weapon and I think Israel would be unarmed. They would have cut off all arms supplies by now. And I'm pretty sure that they would blow up all the dams on the Snake River. It's everything. And I think there would be another 10,000 people coming in every day. And Mr. Mayorkas or his facsimile would be telling us as people in the background flood across that the border is secure. We dodged a bullet. We really did. And that's why I cannot forgive people who are conservative. That's why I really admire Mike Pence. I liked him. But when I saw him tonight, I felt like he was a tragic figure. He was praising Trump. And Martha McCallan asked him, was this at odds with what you voted for? And he tried to explain, but even I looked at his face and I thought, his face is sad. Please don't go there. I was probably wrong because how can you not vote for someone who represents 90% of what your whole life credo was. And given the alternative, the alternative wasn't Bill Clinton. It wasn't even Barack Obama. It was hard left socialism.
Jack Fowler
No one that signs a letter or a petition ever apologizes. The Duke faculty that signed, there were like 88 of them. Not a single one of them.
Victor Davis Hanson
The 51 on the Duke Lacrosse.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, the 51.
Victor Davis Hanson
No, the 51. Not one of them housed. But they did lose their security clearances. Trump stripped them. And the hundred economists.
Jack Fowler
No, well, the hundred.
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, there were 17 Nobel economists that said we were going to have a.
Jack Fowler
Recession, but there were a hundred for diplomat Republican conservatives who, who endorsed. Yes, Kamala Harris. It's one thing they actually endorsed.
Victor Davis Hanson
Wasn't the law school dean at Pepperdine. I'm from getting it. He was the Vatican ambassador, wasn't he?
Jack Fowler
Well, there was a lot. Oh, Doug, come. Yes, he had, he had actually, actually endorsed Obama.
Victor Davis Hanson
He had endorsed Barack Obama. But they never say, yeah, no, we're wrong, we're sorry. No, they don't. They just, they, they don't.
Jack Fowler
And not only would we have had Kamala Harris's president Victor, we would have had Tim Walls as, as vice president.
Victor Davis Hanson
So you know what? This most shameless essay that I've ever seen allowed. Bill Crystal wrote something after what Israel did. And Don, Donald Trump's. He was just out. Yeah, well, it was last 48 hours basically saying that the horrible Donald Trump was somehow stumbling or bumbling into the right position on Israel and Iran. And the horrible, stupid Donald Trump, I'm just paraphrasing, would maybe even hit Iran. And then I think after he did, he mentioned it. In other words, he didn't have the intellectual courage to say, had I gotten my way, Israel might not even be here. Because the people in my new party hate Israel and they count on useful idiots like me to cover up their anti Semitism and hatred because they do hate Israel. And it was, it was, it just, it's just staggering to think that all those people for all those years made so much money and so many scams and grants and packs and project for the new American century and all this stuff. And then all of a sudden we found out it was all, oh, Trump hurt my feelings. He didn't appreciate my genius. Now just forget everything I told you. Cruises.
Jack Fowler
The cruises are evidence of this.
Victor Davis Hanson
I'll tell you why.
Jack Fowler
As you know and many of our listeners know, I mean, I ran the cruise. You came on many of them. And there was never a thought of, of, of having, wow, we, I Remember one cruise we had you and, and Bernard Lewis, Milton Friedman, you know, the. If we could get great thinkers and speakers, that's what we wanted. That was a National Review cruise on a Weekly Standard cruise. No one of that. You would never have been invited on.
Victor Davis Hanson
I never was.
Jack Fowler
Why? Because you would have been. You. You may have come off as more intelligent, et cetera. Then Bill Kristol and Bill Kristol always had to be the premier mind on.
Victor Davis Hanson
Those I never understood because his father was brilliant and widely published and prolific. But for someone who got a PhD, was a professor and was posing as Dan Quayle's brain and he was the intellectual architect of neoconservatism. I mean, I give. I don't agree with Robert Kagan, but he wrote a lot. You know, he wrote a. Robert Kagan wrote a lot. But Bill Crystal never wrote much of anything.
Jack Fowler
I don't think he has a. A book to his name.
Victor Davis Hanson
I can't imagine that. How can you be the intellectual architect of a particular ideology and not take the time to write?
Jack Fowler
And even he had a column in the New York Times for a while and that was kind of, you know, make a trombone sound.
Victor Davis Hanson
So.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, anyway, I mentioned that Tim Walsh, Tim Walls's love for China. It happened a little while ago here, Victor. Maybe within 10 days. I don't know, I forgot. Now events are going so fast. Headline. Former Dem VP pick Tim Walsh claims China may have the world's moral authority after Israel attacks Iran. But are we surprised? The guy that went to China. How many times is. Thinks that the CCP is.
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, you never know because Mo. A lot of the things he said about China, remember the Tiananmen Square lie, the army, about why he didn't go with his unit to Iraq. No sooner had he been nominated as vice president. I think he was picked because he offered. It was very hard to find someone more intellectually unimpressive than Camila Harris. But she found somebody and that was Tim Waltz. But everything he said was basically a lie. And then you juxtapose that with his. What do you call it? Herky jerky, frenetic. The nation was entered, introduced to him is he was this kind of middle aged balding guy like me, but he was pudgy and he wore these kind of 30 something tight pants with, you know, we used to call them high waters. You know, the cuffs were way up to his thigh and, and the sleeves were halfway up his arm. Then he went out and he, he started gesturing. He would point to a guy in the audience. He'd do this. He just. He was Gavin Newsom on steroids more than Gavin does. And then he didn't say. And then he. He was kind of like the folksy I'm going to work with the middle class. And the more he talked you thought this guy is a total fraud. Then his daughter started coming out. She had warned the rioters in the 2020 that her dad was going to call out the National Guard. And the wife had said she raised the windows to smell the aroma of burning tires from the riot. They were just a dysfunctional crazy family. Then the other day when they were talking about adjudicators for the crisis, he mentioned the only one that was legitimate was China. Tim, everybo has said that you were either a naive or pro pla and a lot of people defended you. So why would you confirm their the right wing suspicion that you're a stooge or an idiot as far as China goes and say that a mass murdering government with a history of butchering 70 million of its own people is the only legitimate neutral adjudicator of the Middle East. You're. You're a complete idiot. And he's. He this weird thing where he's supposed to be remember he. I know how to change the oil on it truck and I. I love my beer and. And I drink Mountain Dew and it's just a complete sad. I feel sorry for him. He's a buffoon. I think the best person that I know put who summed him up who's a very un underappreciated genius is Tyrus. Oh yeah, yeah. He's smart and he said Tim Waltz is a clown in search of a circus and that's somebody him out.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. I love Tyrus and I'm very happy my old colleague Kat, Tim is back on.
Victor Davis Hanson
I saw her. I am too. She.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. You taught her.
Victor Davis Hanson
Didn't you teach her? I didn't teach her but I saw her on campus in 2004 or 5. She was an English major. I was teaching at that time. Classics, Greek, history, stuff like that. Military history. But I was on the. I've been. I was on the. The Gutfeld show and I talked to her about her Hillsdale days and she's beat cancer. She has a child, happily married. Everything worked out very well for her. She's got a keen wit. Yeah, I like hers as well.
Jack Fowler
Well, Victor, we've worn you out today and we're going to conclude here with what we normally do at the end of the show. I'm going to read the comment and so many people. Typically single YouTube show. Now episode will have 300, 401 episode. I think we had 800 comments. It's tough to read them all we plow through. But here's one. Actually. This one is from Apple and this is from. It's titled Renaissance Man. Victor is the true Renaissance man. Farmer, historian, linguist. He covers all the bases. I really enjoy his podcast. Really down to Earth. I take this opportunity to wish Victor a speedy recovery from his surgery. I look forward to the wisdom he brings us on daily events. Godspeed, Victor. And this is signed Alaska. Wes. And there are many, many.
Victor Davis Hanson
That's nice. I'm only nine days out. I think I'm 70% back.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well.
Victor Davis Hanson
And that's only because he had to remove bone rather than just tissue in one of the sinuses. So that was a little complication, but the slugs have stopped.
Jack Fowler
I've said too many times, you're indestructible. I want to thank the folks who write me. I get a few emails every week from folks who subscribe to Civ Thoughts. That's the free weekly email newsletter I write for the center for Civil Society, which is trying to strengthen civil society. Civil Thoughts comes out every Friday and I provide 14 recommended readings. How do you get it? You go to civilthoughts.com sign up. Easy peasy. Not charging you, not selling the names. None of that monkey business. Thanks. Oh, subscribe again. Right. Subscribe. Did I say that already? I did. VictorHansen.com, the Blade of Perseus. Do subscribe. Victor, you've been terrific. Thank you. Thank you very much hosting me here.
Victor Davis Hanson
And glad you're sitting one. 40 years ago, there would have been a Ford 4000 sitting right where you are. Yes, this was a garage for my tractors. And then I remodeled it myself into a garage for the cars. And then. But I had taken a. It was a shop during my grandfather's period, but it also had been a place with a manger. That slope over there. Yeah, that low part, that's where the horses came in and ate. And this was hay. And I remodel it. Then when I had a professional, a wonderful guy, Steve. Steve Sargent, who was a contractor, he came in and completely redid this two years ago. And he asked, who did. Who did this? And I said, I don't know. Somebody came out of Mars. And he thought he was a electrician and a carpenter. Plumber.
Vibrance Sponsor
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Victor Davis Hanson
But he did a wonderful job. So it's a beautiful room now. And when I grew up, we did. But we didn't. My grandfather had gotten rid of the working horses and the twenties when he used to worship on the altar of the 9N tractor. And then especially the 8N tractor, had overhead valves and a PTO and then the Ford Jubilee. The 19 late 40s was just. That's what I drove when I was a kid, gas tractor. But we only had horses to ride. My Swedish grandfather had been wounded in World War I and was kind of disabled. So he had 40 acres and he kind of made a menagerie there. He was completely self sufficient. He didn't have any money, but he had geese and ducks and chickens and hogs. And we would go down and butcher these 800 pound hogs. And I remember, God, it was so gross with the intestines. I hated doing it. And then he, I did Tango Johnson was a cowboy and then he was my grandfather, my grandmother's brother. He was 13 years old. He rode all the way from New Mexico with four horses to. For his father to come California when they moved because they didn't. They couldn't afford putting 13. And then my Swedish grandfather broke horses. And I was down in Kingsburg once and there was a big Swede who left and he was a rodeo clown. And my father said, that guy is famous. My grandfather, he goes, yeah, he's famous. You know who it was? He was Slim picked. Yes. He lived in Kingsburg, California and, and he was a rodeo clown and at the Woodlock Rodeo a couple of times before he became like Dr. Strangelow. I think that's what made him famous in 62. But I'm talking when I was five or six years old and he had came out to look at a horse that my grandfather broke. But he was a big Swede. He had, he had gone to, I think he had left Kingsburg or he'd gone to Texas where he got that accent. But he was a Kingsburg Swede. Yeah, he had a. Yeah, but he, he was a Kingsburg Swede and he was a big guy. My favorite movie was underrated, much criticized, but I thought was brilliant. Sam Peckinpah, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid when they're off the river and Katie Gerardo. He said, James Coburn says we got to go get the kids gang. And he said, nah, I don't go anymore. I'm in retirement. I'm building myself a boat. Remember that. I don't want to go out there. He said, no, what if I throw you a $20? He said, okay, Katie. Well, not Katie, but his wife was Katie Drew Gerardo. And she was pretty old at this time, but he was too in their 60s. So they. They go out and they shoot him up. But he gets shot and then he goes to the edge of the river and then she kind of goes. Doesn't get near him, lets him die. He holds and he looks at the sunset and he sings. Bob Dylan sings Knocking on Heaven's Door. I know it sounds corny, but you watch the movie, it's really moving. And that was. Was one of my favorite.
Jack Fowler
Bob should write a Peck and Paw article someday.
Victor Davis Hanson
I wouldn't. He's right up from Coold Cal and his brother Denver Peck and Paul was a judge with my mother on the Superior Court. Denver Peck and Paul. And he was a very funny guy because every once in a while my mom was pretty young, she was 50. And she would get people that she sentenced that would say things. Things to her that were, you know. And then I was. So Denver said to my mom once, now you've got to take a lesson from me, Pauline. And he pulled up his ropes and he had a gun underneath. It was permit legal permitted, concealed weapon, but. And my mom said, I can't do that. And my father, he said, listen to Denver. But they were. The Peck and Paws had a little cattle ranch up in Coarse Gold. And that was kind of the backdrop of Ride the High Country. The geography doesn't quite make sen. But they get to the High Sierra or not the High, but the High Mother Low. And that's supposed to start in court school. That's where the Peckinpahs were from. Sam Peckinpah was a tragic figure because he, you know, he made that brilliant Ride the High country. Then they gave him a lot of money and he didn't really make another great movie until the Wild Bunch. And he did cowboy shows and then he also did that weird eastern front war movie, Men of Iron. Cross of Iron with James Colburn was in there. Yeah, that was actually. There's a whole cult. I didn't realize that. I've got letters from people that said that was his greatest movie. His greatest. Yeah, I got. I. I said something that I thought I was kind of disappointed. And somebody wrote me and gave me all these links to. In Germany, all over the world. It's a big cult movie.
Jack Fowler
It's good movie. I'd watch it again. But it's wasn't the one where they were some.
Victor Davis Hanson
He did a lot in a room.
Jack Fowler
With a bunch of Russian women.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, he's. He also did a movie that was really violent, but it was actually well done Straw Dogs with Dustin Hosman, but that I, I just, I've never seen Bill Holden and he was a brilliant actor, but that was one of the best roles I've ever seen him in as Pike Bishop.
Jack Fowler
Really. You know, he was Ronald Reagan's best man.
Victor Davis Hanson
He was, he really. That was so weird because you think that he would be a liberal critic and he was so loyal to Reagan and he was. I love Bill Holden. He was just wonderful. He's like Dana Andrews and Joel McCray, those three. I always liked those guys. Ben Johnson, he was a certified cowboy that. I'm doing this by memory, but it was the tri, the John Ford Triad, you know, and he was on that one sin where he's got one foot on each horse and he's doing the Roman ride, you know, and that was actually. Ben Johnson did that.
Jack Fowler
Well, he did and so did the kids.
Victor Davis Hanson
So did the. What's his name? Junior? The blonde haired guy. Yes, he. He's very good. Yeah, I'll remember his name in a minute.
Jack Fowler
There were no standings.
Victor Davis Hanson
He lived to be about 80, 90. He, he was, he was in the Searchers, wasn't he? With a guy that rushes out and gets killed.
Jack Fowler
No, no, that was Harry carey.
Victor Davis Hanson
Harry Carey Jr. Was in that movie. Yeah, but I think he was as skilled a writer almost as Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson, as I remember, made a fortune in LA real estate.
Jack Fowler
Oh, he may have, yeah.
Victor Davis Hanson
He was very astute investor. All, all those. But Sam Peckinpah's life, you know, at the end it was cocaine and drugs and. But he was a brilliant director for a while.
Jack Fowler
It's going to be at the end for us.
Victor Davis Hanson
Metamucil and I don't know, I feel like after my 9th operation and some immune problems, I feel like. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door.
Jack Fowler
My friend, the glue factory does not beckon yet.
Victor Davis Hanson
I hope so.
Jack Fowler
You've got to go. I've got to go.
Victor Davis Hanson
I have a farmer friend who says, Victor, when I get old, just get me a concrete room and hose me down occasionally.
Jack Fowler
You've been terrific.
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you everybody for listening.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, same. And we'll be, be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Bye bye.
Victor Davis Hanson
Bye bye.
Podcast Summary: The Victor Davis Hanson Show – Episode: Iran, the Pariah Nation
Release Date: June 26, 2025
Hosts: Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler
Co-host: Occasionally joined by Sami Winc
Timestamp: [01:31] – [05:36]
The episode begins with Jack Fowler introducing the show and briefly mentioning recent news concerning Iran and former President Donald Trump. The primary focus is on Iran’s threats against Trump, alleging potential sleeper cell terrorist attacks amidst escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"You're a target right now. You're in danger because you're near me. I'm a target." – Victor Davis Hanson ([05:36])
Timestamp: [05:36] – [11:06]
Victor Davis Hanson delves into the diminished global influence of Iran, highlighting its strained relations not only with the United States but also with allies like China and Russia. He emphasizes that Iran’s government is widely despised, making it difficult for Iran to rally international support or effective internal resistance against foreign interventions.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"Iran didn't do anything. They kind of winked and nodded." – Victor Davis Hanson ([09:57])
Timestamp: [11:06] – [22:35]
Jack Fowler brings up Trump's recent calls for regime change in Iran, contrasting them with the ineffective attempts of previous administrations. Hanson criticizes the traditional doctrine of regime change, citing failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. He supports Trump’s approach, arguing that abandoning the imperialistic model avoids unwanted entanglements and respects the ineffectiveness of previous nation-building efforts.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"Regime change hasn't worked and nation building hasn't worked. So Donald Trump knows is a third rail that you don't." – Victor Davis Hanson ([12:45])
Timestamp: [28:43] – [36:55]
The conversation shifts to media objectivity, sparked by Terry Moran’s exit from ABC News and his stance against journalistic impartiality. Hanson critiques the modern media landscape, arguing that true objectivity is unattainable and that the rise of opinion journalism has compromised the integrity of news reporting.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"Every article that has the word Trump in it has some kind of knife that you twist into him." – Victor Davis Hanson ([31:50])
Timestamp: [37:03] – [45:09]
A poignant segment features a letter from a parent of a transgender child, expressing heartbreak over their child’s transition. Hanson responds by discussing the medical and societal implications of transgender activism, particularly focusing on the use of hormones and surgeries in minors.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"As the endocrine system and the brain get flooded with pharmaceuticals, the person becomes a shadow of their former self." – Victor Davis Hanson ([40:08])
Timestamp: [47:01] – [51:58]
The discussion returns to environmental policy, specifically California’s plan to remove four dams on the Snake River. Hanson criticizes the plan, highlighting the benefits of dams in terms of power generation, flood control, and irrigation. He argues that the decision was influenced by misguided environmental priorities over practical societal needs.
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"Donald Trump… I think that Iran would have a nuclear weapon and I think Israel would be unarmed." – Victor Davis Hanson ([47:56])
Timestamp: [51:58] – [58:10]
Hanson critiques various political figures, including Mike Pence and Tim Walls, highlighting their perceived weaknesses and false alignments. He expresses disappointment in Pence’s support for Trump and criticizes Walls’ pro-China stance, labeling him as ineffective and misguided.
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"Tim… you are a complete idiot." – Victor Davis Hanson ([55:24])
Timestamp: [58:43] – [68:45]
In the closing segment, Hanson shares personal stories related to farming, family history, and love for classic films, providing a humanizing and relatable end to the episode. The hosts express gratitude to listeners, acknowledge Hanson’s recent surgery, and reflect on the importance of resilience and personal connections.
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"Godspeed, Victor." – Jack Fowler ([59:32])
In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler navigate a range of pressing topics, from geopolitical tensions with Iran and critiques of modern journalism to sensitive societal issues surrounding transgender children and environmental policies in California. Through incisive analysis and personal anecdotes, Hanson provides a conservative perspective aimed at fostering informed and resilient civil society.
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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the June 26, 2025 episode of The Victor Davis Hanson Show. For a more detailed exploration, listening to the full episode is recommended.